


Triggers

by applecameron



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-06 02:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11591508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron





	Triggers

Eames's triggers are obviously combat-related - a car exploding gets him every time.  Fortunately, one way he knows he's in a dream is that something evocative of a military operation doesn't really bother him.  And even with his jet-setting international criminal ways, he hasn't encountered an IED in the waking world in years.

Arthur's are predominantly sexual.  The pleasing side effect of their distinct triggers is that only one of them tends of have a really bad day at a time.  Once, Arthur had to carry Eames out of an operation gone wrong, when their attempt to grab their mark was interrupted by a car bomb placed by a still-unknown third party. Arthur still thinks it was just bad timing and a mark with too many enemies. Eames tries not to think about it at all.

Eames, in turn, regularly takes one step to the side to avoid Arthur's blind spot. In dreams, Arthur has no blind spots. He bends the air to create a lensing effect to see behind himself. Eames thinks of it as forging an extension of the dream physicality, but Arthur says it's an aspect of world building. Either way, it's a trick most don't know he has mastered. Handy, that.

They both have their little self-soothing mechanisms.  Eames touches his own leg, along the side, almost at the knee, to make sure it's still there.  Arthur pushes his hair away from his face and smoothes it down, repeatedly, cupping the back of his own head in the process.

They both read each other, know the other's language of sharp adrenaline spikes or long, slow, mounting anxiety.

They never go to the United States around the 4th of July. And they do their drinking in pubs, hotel bars, sports bars, where Arthur can easily see the drink from assembly to delivery.

All partnerships involve some form of compromise. These are theirs.


End file.
